Close-up of United States Currency, representing The Hefty High Price of Attempted Whistleblower Retaliation, SEC, and whistleblower rewards

SEC Whistleblower Program Tops $100 Million in Payouts

Six years after Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act to reform Wall Street and prevent a future financial crisis from developing, the Securities and Exchange Commission is celebrating the success of the financial incentives created for whistleblowers to provide information about suspected violations of federal securities laws. The SEC announced this week that it has paid...

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First Reverse False Claims Case on Health Care Funds Settles

A closely watched case out of New York concerning the reverse false claims provision of the False Claims Act settled last week. The case was groundbreaking not for its size (it settled for just $2.95 million) but because it was the first involving the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that federal health care fund recipients return overpayments within...

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First FCPA Whistleblower Award Revealed

An Australian newspaper over the weekend reported the payment of a reward by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to an SEC whistleblower concerning information about violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by Australian mining conglomerate BHP Billiton. It is the first public report of a payment to an FCPA whistleblower by the...

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SEC Fines Company Over Severance Agreements Violations

Another publicly traded company has been reprimanded by the Securities and Exchange Commission for attempting to thwart its whistleblower program. This time it is BlueLinx Holdings, Inc., a building products distributor which trades on the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of approximately $84 million, which ran afoul of SEC Rule 21F-17. SEC...

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Tax Court Says IRS Whistleblowers Get Rewards on Criminal Fines

Criminal fines and civil forfeitures are collected proceeds under Internal Revenue Code section 7623(b), the mandatory tax whistleblower program, according to a recent decision by the U.S. Tax Court. The opinion paved the way for an award of $17.8 million to a pair of whistleblowers. In the rules for the IRS whistleblower program, the tax agency...

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Embraer Settlement Progress; Rolls Royce Investigation Update

Summer may be a slow time on the stock market but we’re getting a steady stream of bribery news with just two months left in the government’s fiscal year. On the FCPA front: Embraer announced that it has reserved $200 million for a settlement under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Internationally: Germany and the U.K....

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State Street to Pay Gov’t $382 Million Over Hidden FX Markups

Hidden costs imposed by banks on trading clients are at issue again today with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing a $382.4 million settlement with State Street over misleading mutual funds and other custody account clients. A custody bank holds assets and securities for safekeeping. This includes stocks, bonds and commodities. As part of these...

Tuomey Doesn’t Justify Stark Law Revisions

I spent some time yesterday reviewing the testimony before the Senate Finance Committee a few weeks ago by health care providers and other organizations regarding the need for revisions to the Stark Law. The general substance of the Stark Law is probably familiar to most people in the health care industry but likely not to those...

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LATAM Pays $22 Million under FCPA

The largest airline in Latin America, Chile-based LATAM Airlines Group, has agreed to pay $22 million to resolve investigations by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concerning bribery of foreign officials. LATAM is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which is how it falls under U.S. jurisdiction for the...

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CFTC Issues Fourth Whistleblower Bounty of $50,000

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued its third award in the last year and fourth overall to CFTC whistleblowers pursuant to the terms of the Dodd-Frank Act. The decision was approved last week and the press release issued by the commodities regulator today. The whistleblower’s name, the percentage of the penalty, and the...

Category: News